2017 Sustainability Report: Letter from our CEO and CSO

Sustainability is essential to the long-term growth of our business. As a growth company, we bring people brands and beverages that make life’s everyday moments more enjoyable. Sustainability and respect for human rights are fundamental to our way of operating. They guide the way we do business and are essential to our planet and communities everywhere.

Operating across more than 200 countries and territories with deep local connections and relationships gives us an advantage toward making positive impacts and creating shared opportunity.

Now, more than ever, stakeholders expect more of us. They want us to help find solutions and to make a measurable and meaningful difference in the world. Our sustainability efforts have always been strengthened by open dialogue with many stakeholders – our own employees, consumers, parents, customers, bottling partners, suppliers, governments, NGOs and shareowners. These diverse perspectives will continue to help shape our actions and how we implement initiatives around the world as we move forward on our journey.

Because consumers are at the heart of our business, everything we do starts with our passion for providing the beverages that people want. Achieving growth requires giving people more of the brands and beverages they love. Beyond sparkling beverages, we’re making targeted investments in juices, teas, coffees, waters and other categories that complement people's diverse lifestyles. We’re also reducing sugar, offering more sophisticated flavors and added benefits while increasing package options and the availability of beverages options.

In 2017, we reduced sugar in more than 300 of our drinks globally, while introducing more than 500 new products spanning a variety of categories across a total beverage portfolio. For example, our reformulated Coca-Cola Zero Sugar launched in more than 20 markets in 2017, and in the U.S. we introduced Barrilitos Aguas Frescas, a line of flavored, non-carbonated water beverages. We also finalized the acquisition of AdeS, the leading soy-based beverage brand in Latin America, which we are rolling out in other markets.

Also in 2017, we led along with our bottling partners, the European soft drinks industry and national associations, a drive to advance progress toward a bold new commitment to further reduce the average added-sugar content in still and sparkling soft drinks. The goal in Europe is a reduction of 10 percent between 2015 and 2020. This is in addition to the 12 percent sugar reduction the industry achieved from 2000 to 2015.

We take the many challenges facing our business and our world seriously. The key areas we strive to lead in are water for communities, women’s economic empowerment, and to create a world without waste.

In 2017, we continued to return to communities and nature the equivalent of 100 percent or more of the water used in our finished beverages, as estimated by us and our independent partners. In addition, we improved our water-use efficiency for the 15th consecutive year, which is a 29.3 percent improvement since 2004.

At the same time, our commitment to strengthening communities by empowering women has never been stronger. Our 5by20 initiative enabled the economic empowerment of more than 660,000 women entrepreneurs in 2017. Since 2010, 5by20 has reached more than 2.4 million women across 75 countries.

To help tackle the world’s packaging problem, our new packaging vision, World Without Waste, involves rethinking how bottles and cans are designed and made, as well as how they’re recycled and repurposed within our system around the world. The centerpiece of this vision is a bold, ambitious goal to help collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can we sell globally by 2030. The Coca-Cola system intends to back World Without Waste with a multi-year investment that includes ongoing work to make our packaging 100 percent recyclable by 2025.